Oakland Museum of California * Collection On-Line * The Quilter's Alternative Anthem.

There are some interesting items in Oakland Museum of California. Though having just one sampler - there is a wonderful costume collection. The sampler, shown above, is dated August 28 1843 and was stitched by Elizabeth McCormic who employed a variety of stitches in her sampler. Note the houses and garden gates on the top and bottom borders of her piece. The sampler is now mounted on cotton ecology cloth. It is the gift of Mrs Jessie A Trouth.

But simply wonderful is this crazy quilt of 1875-1880, the gift of Phyllis Faber,
which incorporates a ribbon printed with an alternative Stars and Stripes anthem: Altogether now!
Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light
What you failed to perceive at the twi-light's last gleaming;
A cranky concern that through the long night
O'er the bed where you slept was so saucily streaming;
The silk patches so fair,
Round, three-cornered and square,
Give proof that the lunatic bed-quilt is there.
Oh, the crazy-quilt mania triumphantly raves,
And maid, wife and widow are bound as its slaves.
On that quilt dimly seen as you rouse from your sleep
Your long-missing necktie in silence re-poses,
And the filoselle insects that over it creep
A piece of your vest half concealed half discloses.
There is Kensington stitch
In designs that are rich,
Snowflake, arasene, point russe and all stitch.
Oh, the crazy quilt mania, how long will it rave?
And how long will fair woman be held as its slave?
And where is the wife who so vauntingly swore
That nothing on earth her affections could smother?
She crept from your side at the chiming of four
And is down in the parlor at work on another.
Your breakfasts are spoiled
And your dinners half boiled,
And your efforts to get a square supper are foiled
By the crazy quilt mania that fiendishly raves,
And to which all the women are absolute slaves.
And thus it has been since the panic be-gan;
In many loved homes it has wrought desolation,
And cursed is the power by many a man
That has brought him close to the verge of starvation.
But make it she must,
And she'll do it or bust,
Beg, swap and buy pieces or get them on trust.
Oh, the crazy quilt mania, may it soon cease to rave
In the land of the free and the home of the brave.